Get to know the Constitution

Dear Editor,

To commemorate the September 17, 1787 signing of the Constitution of the United States of America, in 2004 Congress designated September 17th of each year as Constitution Day and September 17th to the 23rd of each year as Constitution Week.

The law establishing the present holiday was created with the passage of an amendment by West Virginia Democrat Senator Robert Byrd to the Omnibus spending bill of 2004. He was quite a contradictory character. In his younger days he brought the KKK to West Virginia and was probably a life long member. He was also an adamant defender of the Constitution, carried a copy of it in his shirt pocket and frequently used it while on the Senate floor as a guide. He pointed out violations of it by Democrats or Republicans.

Public Law 108-447, Section 111 requires: “Each educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for students served by the educational institution. …each Federal agency or department shall provide educational and training materials concerning the United States Constitution to each employee, on September 17 of each year.”

The intent was that children learn the history and content of the Constitution they have inherited so they know without a doubt whether or not their public servants are following it and know the letter of the law that they pledge to uphold and defend. So if your children attend a federally-funded school, did they learn about the Constitution? If you are in a gederal agency or department, were you given educational materials and training? This is a federal law we are talking about!

The Constitution does not give us our rights and liberties. It only guarantees them. “We the People” had all our rights and liberties BEFORE we made the Constitution! The Constitution was formed, among other purposes, to make the people’s liberties secure. Not only as against foreign attack, but against oppression by their own government. It sets specific limits on the national government and upon the states and reserves to themselves all powers they did not grant. The Ninth Amendment declares: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

In a previous letter I quoted Daniel Webster, “It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but THEY MEAN TO GOVERN. They promise to be good masters, but THEY MEAN TO BE MASTERS.”

For this reason, EVERY public servant, from the President to your local public servants, takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution! However, one can legitimately raise the question based on their actions that they either have no clue what they are swearing an oath to uphold and defend, or, they are well versed in the Constitution and are disregarding it with impunity which makes the situation much more insideous!

George Washington advised, “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, ‘till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all.”

The most recent example of our public servants in the Executive and Legislative Branches total disregard and disrespect of their oaths is the sarcastically named Iran agreement, which is really a horrifically written treaty. In the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of a treaty is “a formally concluded and ratified agreement between countries.” In Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, it states, (the President), “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.” The Secretary of State, John Kerry, (who served in Viet Nam), a former Senator, ACTUALLY testified before Congress that the reason he and Obama were calling this an agreement and not a treaty is because it would have no chance of passing in the Senate as a treaty which is also why they refuse to present all the details! Yet the gutless, worthless majority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, will not do his duty and insist that a proper treaty vote be taken in the Senate, and if not ratified by at least two thirds present is null and void period, without the ridiculous premise that Obama has veto power over their vote!

As for the judiciary, in the case concerning the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court majority astoundingly ruled that where the law specifically stated ONLY THE STATES could create exchanges, the SPECIFIC words didn’t matter as long as the “spirit of the law” was followed!

Federalist No. 78 notes, “[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment… liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.”

In no uncertain terms, Federalist No. 81 makes abundantly clear, “[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution….”

I hope by now I have made my point of the absolute importance of your knowledge of the Constitution, that you make sure your children learn it, and that our public servants know it, and the penalties it provides for their disregard of it.

You can borrow a copy from your local library, get it on line, or find sites on line that will even provide you with a free copy! No more excuses! Your future and your children’s future depends on it!

David Wolosik

Oroville